All The Records I've Ever Owned

Year Released: 2006 Label: Sanctuary Year Bought: 2006 Released in 2006, 'Ringleader of the Tormentors' in many ways represents the apex of the Morrissey resurgence that began two years earlier with 'You Are The Quarry'.  Whereas that album peaked at number 2 in the album chart (although it did spawn 4 top ten singles), its successor gave Morrissey his first number 1 album since 1994's 'Vauxhall and I'. 'Ringleaders...' raised some eyebrows at the time as Morrissey sang explicitly about something he had previously made a virtue of not discussing. His sex life. "There are exploding kegs between my legs," he sings on 'Dear God Please Help Me' – a tune that swells and grows to a climax with strings written by Ennio Morricone. "Now I'm spreading your legs with mine in between," he later adds.  Perhaps this new found desire of the flesh was due to this album being recorded in Italy, and references to the country season the ...

Year Released: 2006 Label: Source Year Bought: 2006 On the TV show 'Lost', there's a notion that the way to stop your brain from haemorrhaging because of time travel is to locate a 'constant' - someone in your life that you can go to at any point on your travels that will essentially ground your mind and enable you to get a grasp on reality. Weirdly, Gemma Hayes is the musical equivalent of mine. I always seem to get her album or see her live at a transitional period of my life, and I always go back to her when I need to be grounded. 'The Roads Don't Love You' is her second album, following her from her Mercury Prize-nominated debut 'Night On My Side'. Released in 2005, the record is more radio-friendly than her debut, not that that meant her tunes got any air time. For some reason, she's always been an underground artist with a cult following, despite having a beautiful voice, great songs and a very marketable image. (Apparently Louis Walsh ...

  Year Released: 2006 Label: XL Year Bought: 2006 Thom Yorke's debut solo album came at a time when Radiohead was slightly in limbo. After the four-album run that stretched from The Bends to Amnesiac, 2003's Hail To The Thief saw the band not receive near-universal praise for the first time since their debut album ten years earlier. Having released three albums in four years, the group went on a break, but Yorke did not stop writing, hence The Eraser. For Radiohead obsessives like me this record was a lovely surprise when it came out, and it seemed to be released without a huge marketing campaign. It just sort of appeared.  The nine songs that make up The Eraser feel like the electronic album Radiohead had been threatening to make for years. The album is full of muted drum machines and electronic loops, with barely an analogue instrument to be found. Even the piano chords on the title track - played by Johnny Greenwood - are processed. Yet over the top of this very cold and ar...

Released: 2006 Label: Locked On When I Bought: 2006 When the lead single from The Streets' third album was released, it suggested Mike Skinner was about to shine a light into the dark cave of mid 00s celebrity culture and show us all the worms and rats wriggling and scurrying just out of view. The track detailed his dalliance with a crack-smoking pop star who managed to keep it nice and clean for her CD:UK appearances. The tale was couched in the typical Skinner everyman sensibilities, letting us know that yes, when you're a famous boy, it gets really easy to get girls. But we can still identify with him as "when you try to pull a girl who is also famous too, it feels just like when you wasn't famous." When the album was released, I looked forward to hearing more tales from the darkness, but actually, the pervading theme of the album is that Skinner was lost in the cave with no light to guide him, 'Prangin Out' is a brilliant opening track. Paranoid, nasty...